Posts from the “public services” Category

Here’s a selection of pics from yesterday’s Save our NHS demo in Manchester. For some strange reason you won’t find much mention of the #NHS299 march and rally in the mainstream media. But it definitely happened. We were there, making ourselves heard outside the Tory Party Conference: all 50,000 of us. Related articles 50,000 rally outside Tory conference amid ‘censorship’ row (metro.co.uk) Live: 50,000 join Manchester anti-cuts march as Tory conference begins (manchestereveningnews.co.uk) More than 50,000 out for NHS protest against Tory-led Coalition’s cuts and reforms (mirror.co.uk) Marching for the NHS in Manchester #saveourNHS (think-left.org) Advertisements

Okay, so my daughter’s wedding is all done and dusted and went off without a hitch on Saturday – even the weather stayed nice! All of which means I can hopefully now clear some space in my head for thinking about other things like writing and campaigning and marching and protesting….. * * * Which reminds me. There are only five days to go until the March for a Future that Works, or #Oct20 as it’s otherwise known. Look, even the giant ugly countdown clock thingy in the sidebar has finally managed to get its numbers right. * * * I’m not going to repeat everything I said in my Guardian piece last year about the importance of marching against…

Remember March 26th last year when we did this? – Anti-cuts march: Anger amid the carnival Well, it’s nearly time to do it all over again. This year’s march and rally – A Future That Works – will be on October 20th, with demonstrators setting off from the Embankment sometime around 11am, and ending up in Hyde Park several hours later. The march for A Future That Works is happening for pretty much the same reasons as last time, but with a few more thrown in for good measure. It’s been over a year since the last demo don’t forget, and I don’t think back then even the most hardened and cynical among us could have predicted the extent of the devastation this government…

I realise it’s nowhere near as important or as newsworthy as the London mayoral race, but I too have been involved in an election recently, and guess what? I won! Yep, I am now the Regional Convenor for UNISON Eastern region. I’ve been trying to find an explanation of what the post is, because I suspect the title Regional Convenor is probably pretty meaningless to anyone outside of the trade union movement. The best I could come up with is this, from what I suspect is now an out of date UNISON document entitled Partnership working at Regional Level – A Best Practice Guide: Key tasks of regional convenor The regional convenor is elected by regional council delegates and is the senior lay member…

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